Rice harvest finally finished
DUE to a few wet paddocks and breakdowns, the rice harvest limped along a bit longer than it should have.
Hooker can now concentrate on looking after our crop and getting it out of the sheds for next year.
I’m not sure of the exact figures, but I think we put over 80,000 tonnes through our 66,000-tonne storage sheds at Moulamein, plus there was a fair bit that went straight to Deniliquin.
If we work it out, at even 80,000 tonnes at $400 per tonne, that comes to over $32 million that we have had injected into our district.
One of the best things about rice is that we process all of our rice in our district. SunRice does not export unprocessed rice unless we have a very big year and they have to get rid of a few tonnes very quickly.
So that minimum $32 million that has been injected into our Moulamein district produces millions more badly-needed dollars for our local district as it goes down the line.
Two young fellows grew their first crop this year and did okay out of it. They can only be described as the hottest rice growers in the district at the moment.
District drying Out
UNFORTUNATELY, there is a bit of a blue tinge coming into some of the tougher country in our district.
The growth is that good this year that the grass will suck the ground dry very quickly.
I was having a beer with some of my campers the other day. The paddock we were in looked fantastic.
He asked: “How long will this feed last? Will it get you through until Christmas?” I just said that if it does not rain, it will start to die before the end of the month and will virtually be gone by the end of August.
But one more good rain and it will get me through until next year. Just one more rain. How many times have we said that in our lifetime? That is what irrigation is for. To get us across the line when the rain runs out.
Football/netball away again this week
WE took our last trip to play our mates at Quambatook last week.
Unfortunately, they might calling it quits at the end of the year but they do not call it quits on the field.
Our Mighty Magoos had a good win, but our seniors went down after only being down by three points at three-quarter time after a great third quarter by our team.
The Quamby supporters will miss their footy for sure next year as they are very passionate barrackers.
I was a bit worried about some of the old ladies behind me, but I had a yarn to one of them after the game and she was very nice.
We go to Macorna this week. Our Mighty Magoos still have a mathematical chance to make the four, but it is only a slim one.
Our seniors have almost cemented their spot in the four, but the cement is not dry yet so they have to stay on their toes and keep winning.
After this week, we have two games in a row at home.
Community grants program
ROUND one of our Murray River Council community grants program is up for grabs until the end of September.
There is $3000 per community group up for grabs if your groups project meets the criteria.
River levels
THE Edward is running at just under 8000 megalitres at Deniliquin.
Over 3600 of this is going down the Niemur and still bugger all going down the Wakool for some reason.
The Edward at Moulamein has only just gone past 4400ML at the time of writing and still rising slowly.
The fish do not seem to care that the rivers are so good and seem to have stayed off the bite with one mob getting one very small cod in their visit.
Another mob got nothing but they drank a lot of beer and had plenty of laughs so they were happy with their visit.
